Caught in the Sun: Let's Get Together Now
by TachyonOne
Summary: Based on the original characters of several anime fanfics. The World Cup Final could fall victim to a deadly bomb if the Reality Jumpers don't put a stop to it. The final episode of a special fanfic series.


"Undocumented Features" is a Dirty Pair fanfic written by Benjamin D. Hutchins, MegaZone and Rob Mandeville. For more information, visit http://www.eyrie-productions.com/.  
  
"Dear Mom" and "We Just Want to Help You" are Bubblegum Crisis fanfics written by Jeanne Hedge. For more information, visit http://www.jhedge.com/.  
  
"Operation: Reality Check" is a Sailor Moon fanfic written by Roehl Sybing. For more information, visit http://www.infinitedeferral.com/.  
  
"The Bubblegum Zone" is a Bubblegum Crisis fanfic written by Bert Van Vilet. For more information, visit http://www.bgcrisis.com/.  
  
"Thy Outward Part" is a Ranma 1/2 fanfic written by Richard Lawson. For more information, visit http://www.sterman.org/.  
  
For more information about this fanfic series, go to http://www.infinitedeferral.com/ or for other fanfics in this series, go to my profile at http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=79367 .  
  
Infinite Deferral Productions presents...  
Caught in the Sun  
A 2002 World Cup / Anime Fanfic Series  
By Roehl Sybing (indef@infinitedeferral.com)  
  
Final Episode: Let's Get Together Now  
Final Match: Germany v Brazil @ Yokohama  
An Anime Fanfic  
  
"You are there for me, this I hope and pray..."  
- Course of Nature, Caught in the Sun  
  
"Drop the weapon!" Mike cried, "I said drop it now!"  
In the darkness, the shadow complied only reluctantly. The object fell to the ground and the figure held his hands against his head, as he was instructed. The confident Reality Jumper only waited for backup to assist him.  
One by one, the other Jumpers rushed into the area underneath the stands, looking to see what was the matter.  
"Guys, I've got our man!" he cried once he heard their footsteps echoing against the walls about him.  
His four partners stopped right behind him. Jackie took one look at the silhouette pointed out by Mike's energy gun, and then hit him repeatedly on the arm. "'Got'!? We already had him! We had to break off because we thought you were in trouble!"  
Silence pierced the tension around them for quite some time, until Mike responded, "What are you talking about?"  
Chris and Kim rushed over to the figure in question, patting him down on the floor until he could be properly identified by the object he dropped on the floor.  
"You made him drop his wallet," Kim said.  
---  
A large portion of the underground areas of International Stadium Yokohama was the temporary home of the buzzing mobile command center, in which the Reality Jumpers made their base. Jake was in the heart of one of the Commission's largest deployments in recent memory, in a makeshift interrogation room where their person was being held. After half an hour of questioning, the team leader stretched his legs and walked out of the room, where the other Jumpers were waiting.  
"I got a name: Bert," Jake said, reporting on what little findings he had, "A codename, too: SkyKnight. But that's pretty much all I got out of him."  
"Whoever he is, he's got two forms of identification," Jackie said, holding up the contents of his wallet, "With two different dates of birth."  
Jake took the cards from Jackie and inspected them himself, "Well, he can't be thirty-two and sixty-two at the same time."  
"Or with Canadian and Japanese citizenship at the same time."  
Kim looked up, "The guy's Canadian?"  
A nod from her fellow officer prompted Kim to draw her miniature flame-thrower from its holster. "Let me at him already!" she cried.  
Jake held her back, "At ease, officer, the war's over!"  
She was forced to calm down after a few outbursts of rage, after which she settled down and disengaged her weapon.  
"I'm fine. Really," Kim said, trying to convince the others.  
"He's a goddamn wanderer," Mike said, "Who knows what he's done to the timeline, or how many six-eighteens he's committed."  
"The time traveling I'll buy, but we got to assume he jumped here by mistake. Hacker reported a couple of spontaneous gateway openings the moment we arrived," Jake explained.  
"They could be dangerous."  
"Well, we have bigger problems to worry about. Like this computer system. C'mon."  
The three other Jumpers followed him to the large area commanded by several dozen technicians and countless computer displays and inputs, where Chris sat hard at work.  
"Shouldn't judge our suspect, Kim," Jake said as they walked, "He's pretty charismatic even for you."  
"Older men aren't my type," she replied, "Or Canadians."  
"Whatever. OK, Chris," he said, "What do we got?"  
Chris took off his headset and swiveled around in his chair, "We got absolutely nothing. My boys spent the last couple of hours trying to crack this thing, but it's a total mismatch. We're working on something, though."  
"Yeah?"  
"Nothing special, just checking to see if the stadium security will respond to our inputs at all."  
Jake gave the go-ahead, "Alright, make me proud."  
Chris nodded, and took a standard keyboard, a device with which he was completely unfamiliar, slowly and cautiously typing away at its keys. The large ENTER key was pressed, at the monitors flashed with all sorts of action. His eyes lit up, assuming he had done something right for the first time today. Suddenly, though, the displays blinked in and out, showing various error messages in red. Alarms went off, and to their surprise, the ground below them began to shake.  
Jake held on firmly to a console, and Kim held on firmly to Jake, and one after the other they formed a chain as a violent rumbling overtook the area. Several agents around them fell to the ground as the mobile command center shook all about, but only because the entire stadium shook all about. The artificial earthquake subsided somewhat, but the room continued to shake.  
"What exactly did you do?"  
"I don't know!" Chris cried, "Our devices are not compatible with these systems! It seems to have caused a tremor from inside the stadium!"  
---  
Dear Mom,  
  
I'm in the hospital. No, don't worry! I'll be up and about in a few days. See, a client of mine knew someone who knew someone who was giving away some tickets to the final match, and, well, I just couldn't pass it up! They even wanted to give us a tour of the stadium in Yokohama, so how could I say no?  
  
We were there hours before the game, and eventually I had to break for the restroom. So, you know me, curious as ever, it's a strange thing about those Japanese toilets. I must've pushed the wrong button, though, because the entire restroom shook and flooded from the inside out! It would be bad enough, if it weren't for a piece of the ceiling landing right on top of my leg!  
  
The doctor's not concerned, and I'll be getting back to work by the end of the week. A shame about missing the final game, though...my favorite team won, too!  
  
Again, don't worry. These things happen, you know!  
  
Your daughter, as always,  
Me.  
---  
"We have eight hours," Chris said, "We have got to figure out this computer system in eight hours."  
"I know," Jake replied, "We just need someone who can h--"  
"Jake!"  
He heard his name and turned his head. The next thing that Jake saw was the Federal Reality Commission's SpaceCol liaison and her hand striking him hard across his cheek.  
"What the--? Lisa!"  
"Do you know how many favors I had to call in just to find you, just to get your coordinates!?" Lisa asked angrily.  
Jake raised a finger, "This, uh, this I can explain..."  
"Oh, save it, tough guy! Has it dawned on you yet that it has been five years to the day?"  
Instinctively, the junior officer's jaw dropped, but Lisa took it as much more.  
"I don't believe you!" she cried, "I am never speaking to you again!"  
"Lisa, this is not what you think! I took this assignment because it was important!" Jake said before being pushed away.  
"A lot of things are important, buster! Saving all those children on Omicron 4-9-6 from the Black Plague is important. Protecting Earth Prime from renegade vampires is important," Lisa said while flinging her hands about, then rolling them into fists as she pouted like a small child, "Remembering the five-year anniversary since we started dating...IS...IMPORTANT!"  
"Lisa! I--"  
"No, don't say anything!" Lisa cried as she again pushed away from Jake, "It's gonna take a lot for me to get over your wanting to go to a dumb soccer game instead of spending some time!"  
Jake couldn't say anything to her that would make her feel better, especially when she escaped his reach and into the growing crowds outside the mobile center, grabbing the nearest young man in both their sights and kissing him firmly on the lips.  
The junior officer was taken aback, "Lisa!"  
"You got a name?" she asked half-seductively.  
"Uh," the young man mumbled, "I-It's, um, Kentaro."  
Lisa's eyes instinctively and methodically lit up as she resorted to petting Kentaro on his neck. "Excellent. You got tickets?"  
"Yeah, I guess, but, but--"  
"Great! C'mon, let's get out of here!" Lisa shouted loud enough for Jake to hear, as she took her new partner by the arm, leaving a stunned Jake to contemplate the last few moments. The young man named Kentaro wanted to resist at first, though his desires got the best of his intellect. All Jake could do was watch the two of them happily fade into the crowds.  
"God!" Chris said, grinning after having observed them the whole time, "Would I love to have that woman ruin my life."  
Jake turned to Chris, looking at him as if to scoff, "Shut up, Chris."  
"Do you think she's coming back with us?"  
"Oh, I think so," he replied, checking his watch, "That's the third man she's kissed this week, besides myself. I should feel sorry for all of them, really."  
"Must really be pissed at you lately," Chris said curiously.  
Jake shrugged, "Tried to make dinner for her a couple days ago. Forgot about resetting the energy fields in her apartment. You know, kitchen stove, cooking oil, fire, low gravity..."  
"Yeah, I gotcha."  
"Singed her hair really bad," he commented unemotionally.  
"So that's why it was buzzed short..."  
The pocket intercom beeped intermittently, interrupting their rather laid-back conversation. "Tyler here," Jake said.  
"The two in custody are in interrogation, sir," the voice replied above the static.  
---  
"Now," Jake said, sitting at the other end of the table, supposedly in good cop-bad cop mode, only if Jackie were in the room to assist. "From what security tells me, you two have been wandering around the restricted areas of the stadium, trying to figure out what's what."  
"We, uh," the first man said, "We thought we were in a program--"  
"Yeah, that. You managed to activate your, um - what do you call it?"  
"The HoloDECstation."  
Jake nodded in agreement, "Exactly what you just said. It turned on at exactly the same time our gateway opened into this reality. The energy streams converged, a huge wormhole swiss-cheesed the entire planet, and so here you are."  
The second man asked, "Is that why the--"  
"--That's why a naked woman was running through the stadium, yes. Apparently she was taking a shower when it happened," Jake replied, trying not to laugh at the situation.  
"I knew she wasn't programmed in," one whispered to the other.  
The two in custody looked at each other, and then the first asked, "You need us for something, don't you?"  
The junior officer nodded his head, "Well, when you mistook our mobile center as part of your...holo-thingy, we caught you hacking into the stadium's computer grid, trying to get out. We need you two to help our lab boys crack the security system."  
The first looked at Jake suspiciously. "Why?" he asked.  
Jake looked towards the one-way mirror in the wall. A green light above it lit up, and the officer complied. "We've got a very dangerous mad bomber on the loose. He's not here to make statements, he's just here to cause trouble. The biggest audience on this planet will be watching tonight's match, and he has pledged this stadium to be his calling card to the rest of the continuum. We can't let that happen, and so I need you guys to teach our techies to break into the stadium's computerized security so that we can control it during the match."  
"Yeah," he said, pointing at himself and his partner, "But why do you need US?"  
Jake eyed both of them, trying to stare them down. In the end, though, he had to confess. "The proprietary security program employs coding that is far less sophisticated than our own. This Earth calls the system UNIX. It is simply so primitive that we just don't understand it."  
The silence among the three of them would have demonstrated the nature of this comedy, had it not been so indicative of the serious tension among everyone involved. Despite what was, at best, an indirect insult, MegaZone and ReRob looked at each other one more time, nodding to cap an unspoken agreement.  
"We'll do it," they said.  
The junior officer smiled in relief. "Good," he said.  
Just then, the door flung open, and through it entered another Reality Jumper.  
"So! The hell were you doing in the commcenter? Answer me! Don't lie to me!" Jackie exclaimed while repeatedly pumping her fists into the table to intimidate, to which Jake reacted with planting his head onto his hand.  
---  
"And welcome, to those of you watching from around the world, to the World Cup final match between Germany and Brazil! It is estimated that every one in five people in the world are expected to watch two of the biggest titans of the game clash with each other for the right to hoist the most coveted trophy in all of sport."  
"Just an hour before the game started, International Stadium Yokohama was already packed to capacity. We've already got in attendance a couple thousand people in excess of the seventy-thousand seated surrounding the pitch, and that's not including the security forces and stadium officials! Everyone here, regardless of the result, is in for a treat, starting with the pregame ceremonies, then the game itself, in which there are no clear favorites, all the way to the trophy presentation. We promise you that this will be a night to remember!"  
---  
Jake walked back into mobile command, saying, "This is one night I'd rather forget."  
"Every bookie on three hundred alternates has bets going on this match."  
"Don't remind me. Unless we find these bombers, we're not going to have time to watch a single minute of it!"  
"Yeah, that," Mike replied, "There's also a bet on whether the match will actually finish, with all the stuff that's going on. I got fifty credits on it."  
Jake turned to Mike, looking cluelessly, "What?"  
"Angeles Island has eleven-to-three odds on our finishing this match alive, I couldn't pass it up!"  
The team leader flung his arms in the air, not finding much relief in where he was going either.  
"OK, so wait!" a dumbstruck Chris said for the rest of his techies, "What was that command you just sent?"  
ReRob looked at Chris in amazement, "For the ninetieth time, I just changed the directory."  
Jake held his hands against his hips, "Chris!"  
Chris, spotting his fearless leader, sought consolation from him by gripping his clothing. "Jake, this is like the Dark Ages, dude. A hundred-and-one keys on a two-dimensional input!? I might as well give my boys some sticks and stones and tell them to invent the wheel, man!"  
The wall intercom behind a desperate Chris lit up, and Jake looked past him, saying, "What is it?"  
"Incoming message, sir," an officer said, "Unknown origin."  
"Alright, put it up," Jake ordered, to which the screen turned on, revealing the face of horror.  
"Hey!" ReRob cried, "That looks like Coyle!"  
"You're looking at the most dangerous man in the bunch," Jake said, pointing at the monitor, "There's a double of him on nearly every Alternate Earth in the continuum, accounting for countless acts of mischief. We got a whole department set aside for just this one person."  
"Now that's just scary."  
"What do you want?" Jake asked.  
The man on the screen smirked, "Me? I just want to play a game. Oh, don't worry, the main event, our big blast, is coming up, but first I want to keep you boys on your toes. So what do you say about an opening act?"  
"Not in the mood for appetizers, sir," he commented.  
"No, I don't think you have much choice in the matter," the man said before hanging up the videocom, "By the way, Tyler, have you seen Jackie?"  
---  
She grabbed her overpriced tempura from the concession stand and made her way to the elevator. Jackie was late checking back in, and darted for the shortest possible route back to the commcenter. The door shut behind her and she allowed the woman next to her to press the button of her desired floor.  
"Crazy night, huh?" Jackie asked.  
Suddenly, the elevator car stopped between floors, and the two women stuck in it were knocked off their bearings. The lights went black and the dim emergencies lit up.  
"Uh, don't panic!" the Reality Jumper cried, "We just--"  
In mid-sentence, a panel in the elevator car's ceiling gave way and dropped a bomb between the feet of the two of them. It had the mad bomber's signature all over it, complete with wiring, booby traps and a fancy digital display, counting down from ten minutes.  
"Oh, my God!" the woman said, hyperventilating.  
Jackie looked at her, then looked down, observing that she first needed to get a hold of herself and get a hold of the situation. "Alright, stop!" she said, grabbing the stranger very tightly, "What's your name, soldier?"  
The woman's lips quivered, but she managed to speak, "It's, uh, Colleen."  
"Alright, Colleen, I'm Jackie," she said, forcing herself to calm down, "Now, I can't defuse this thing if you're going to be freaking out all over me, do you understand!?"  
Colleen's eyes lit up as if hope had arrived, "Can you defuse this bomb?"  
"Yes, I--well, yeah!"  
"O-O-OK," she replied in a less frantic tone, collapsing along the side of the elevator car, leaving Jackie to tend to the device in front of her.  
"Is there anything I can do?"  
"No, not really," Jackie replied as she wiped the sweat from her face.  
"Just tell me if you do," Colleen suggested, "I saw this in a fanfic once!"  
Jackie raised her head.  
"Never mind."  
---  
"And so, the Brazilians with the early chance to go one-up on the Germany on this penalty kick. Dangerous foul in the box by the German defense. They paid for it with a yellow card, and they just might pay for it again if Brazil can get past the stonewalling German keeper, who has been tremendous throughout this tournament."  
---  
The first few minutes flew by, as Jackie's fingers navigated underneath the open panel of the lethal device. Wires changed colors, light patterns between diodes were hard to predict, and booby traps that could set off a premature detonation were littered throughout the bomb.  
"Let's just say we're not in good shape," Jackie said.  
"Oh, we're in trouble," Colleen replied.  
"Only until we get out of it," she said with determination, reaching into her uniform to grab her electricity gun, "It's not set off by an electric charge, maybe I can short out the wiring before I set off a trap."  
"What are you doing?"  
"Yeah, just in case, if it doesn't work, for the record, this was not a good idea," she said with a very nervous laugh.  
A frightened-out-of-her-wits Colleen crawled away from the device and hugged the wall. Jackie stuck the barrel of her weapon into the insides of the explosive and looked away before pulling the trigger. Lightning bolts channeled out of the gun and flew all over the insides of the device, burning out the circuit boards and causing fumes to rise up from the bomb.  
"Did it work?" Colleen said after a moment of silence.  
"Uh," Jackie mumbled, eyeing the accelerating pace of the time display, "I'm working on it."  
Colleen gasped, "This can't be real!"  
"Oh, believe me," the Reality Jumper replied, "This is as real as--"  
An object moved about in Jackie's pocket. She felt the side of her pants, and her jaw dropped with delight as she took it out. "The track-and-return device!" she cried, "I must've forgotten to get it charged!"  
"What is it?"  
"It's--" she said, stopping herself. She didn't dare tell Colleen what it was, but she would have to show it to her anyways. "Try not to look, alright?" she asked.  
Colleen hid her eyes behind her hand, as Jackie hoped that there was enough of a charge in the track-and-return to open up the gateway. She pointed it at the elevator door and pressed the buttons, opening in thin air a wormhole back to Commission headquarters.  
"Here's to hoping there's no one on the other end," Jackie said to herself as she furiously lifted the bomb off the floor and hurled it into the gateway. She noticed that Colleen was extra-curious as she peeked through her fingers. They both watched the gateway shrink into nothing, closing entirely just half a moment after an explosion on the other end translated through the opening with a cloud of smoke and bits of debris.   
---  
"The keeper got a piece of it, but Brazil scores! One-nil to the South Americans! Amazing strike, as both of them faked left and eventually went right. The keeper reacted just in time, but could only put three fingers on it as the ball sailed into the back of the net. Simply amazing!"  
---  
Jackie collapsed onto the floor, hearing only the sounds of gratitude from Colleen, both of their lives having been spared.  
As cliched as it was, the elevator started up again, rising to Jackie's floor just after the bomb went off. Her scanning showed no life on the other side of the wormhole, where one of the Commission's gateway rooms stood, but the damage had to be considerable. No one would have to know, though...  
---  
"Jackie!" Hacker One said once the elevator door opened, "We thought you were in trouble!"  
The Jumper shook her head, trying to play ignorant of the bomb she threw back into Headquarters on Earth Prime. Colleen, however, was not so coy.  
"Are you guys, like, superheroes?" she asked, "Some secret organization, right? And you're here to save us from the bad guys!"  
"Miss," Hacker replied, "I think you're mistaken."  
"The lab coat, the glasses, the long hair!" she cried, observing Hacker One, "You must be the brains of the outfit! Mister, this woman saved my life!"  
He looked at his officer, "From what, Jackie?"  
Jackie desperately shook her head, trying to deny the whole thing had ever taken place.  
"Jackie!" Colleen said eagerly, "Tell him! Tell him about the bo--"  
The Jumper covered the woman's mouth with her hand, laughing frantically, "Hacker, this woman is delusional!"  
Hacker looked at the two of them with a hint of suspicion, but he suspected that he would never know what happened, only that their presence among the locals was compromised.  
"OK," he said, having moments ago signaled two guards to greet them, "These men are going to check you out for...any injuries, young lady."  
"But I'm not hurt," Colleen insisted as she was taken by her arms, "I'm completely fine!"  
"It's alright," Hacker said in a falsely comforting tone, "All part of the service."  
"But, but--!" said the woman as she was forcefully removed from their sight and into the back end of the command center. Jackie and Hacker One watched until she left their field of vision.  
"Are the mindwipes really as painless as they say?" Jackie asked innocently.  
Hacker stroked his chin, saying, "No."  
"Oh, OK."  
---  
An agent darted through the hallways and into the command center, where Jake sat in the midst of all the action.  
"Director! Director!" he cried, "There's been a fire in the storage areas!"  
Jake shot up from his chair, "What?"  
The officer handed over his papers to Jake, saying, "We had two of our guys watching storage pack away some crates at sublevel. Something was ignited, and the whole place went on fire!"  
"Tell me there's a connection."  
"Yes, sir. We had the place scanned, in the box that was ignited, there were trace elements of compound-114."  
His eyebrows lifted and his jaw dropped, and Jake looked to his partners. How refined, weapons-grade compound-114 got out of a military armory and smuggled into an Alternate Earth of this type was beyond him and his Jumpers. This crazed bomber was too direct for Jake's liking.  
"The trace compound must've shaken off whatever was in the crate," Jake said.  
"Then it's in the balls, sir," the agent replied.  
The team leader looked at him blankly. "What did you just say?"  
His mouth remained agape, "The box was carrying the match balls, sir. They're all on the pitch right now, sir."  
FAR too direct, Jake thought. Hardly fancy, not at all creative, but the bomber was getting away it, had some workers not been as careless in igniting the unfortunate package. He took a deep breath, two steps from hyperventilating, shooting from the hip upon trying to devise a plan.  
"Kim!" he cried, "Follow me, we're headed up to the field!"  
---  
"And the gritty German offense equalizes early in the second half! It wasn't pretty at all, but the defense for Brazil broke down, letting their opponents in literally through the back door. The corner kick bounced around a couple of times until the loose ball found the midfielder to take it all the way into the net, making it one-one Germany!"  
---  
Jake and Kim snuck up to the edge of the tunnel leading to the field, and spotted some distance away from them the wireframe container, holding the surplus match balls that waited to be thrown into play.  
"Alright," he said, "Get up there and find the bomb."  
"Me? Why am I getting shafted!?" Kim protested.  
"Well, it's your turn, and you're closer to it! Just find it already, will ya?"  
Kim pouted, but eventually did as she was ordered. "Just in case," she said, "I'm going to blame you for this if I don't make it!"  
She sprinted towards the gold-colored soccer balls, leaving Jake to cover her in the distance. He couldn't bear to watch her get in trouble, though, and so his gaze drifted elsewhere. Jake looked all about the endless stands above him and across from him. They were all jumping up and down, in the midst of a tense draw on the most important match of the tournament. He couldn't help but think that he wasn't part of any of the real action, just sitting behind the scenes, while Lisa was somewhere deep in the excitement without him. Just with that dumb guy she picked up! Jake kicked himself as he was torn between responsibilities. To think of all the things that character could be doing to her!  
A firm slap on the head snapped him out of it. "Where the hell did you go!?" Kim shouted in his ear.  
"I'm sorry!" Jake apologized, "Did you get it?"  
That's when Kim held the prize up, "There's enough explosives in here, we might skip the next life."  
He looked all around at the innocent people in the stands. "Great," he said, "Now what?"  
His words startled Kim. "'Now what'? You don't have a plan?"  
"Just give me a second, alright!?"  
He desperately searched for a solution, even as the explosives-laced soccer ball stood in his midst. Jake looked to his left, and in front, just below the first row of seats stood, luckily, the answer to his prayers. Another rather large device, a humanoid-shaped machine, sat largely unnoticed, entirely ignored by the crowds who had seen large and towering balloon mascots wander the field during pregame ceremonies.  
"What is it?"  
Kim inspected the machine with her scanner, "It appears to be a rather crude mechanized weapon suit."  
"Creative," Jake said, "Must've also got caught in the wormholes. It looks like it needs a driver, where is he?"  
"Don't bother looking for him," she said, wiping away the dust from a nameplate on one of the suit's panels, "He's in lockup."  
"SKYKNIGHT MODULAR GENERAL ASSAULT ARMOR" read the plate as Jake threw his hands into the air.  
"This ball's gonna go off any moment now," he said, looking down at his trembling hands, holding with unsteadiness the match ball, containing enough compound-114 to destroy Yokohama at least twice over.  
"Alright," Kim said commandingly, "Maybe I can turn this thing on. Give me a boost."  
Jake held her foot and helped to throw her into the hardsuit, where she tinkered away at the parts in the inner workings. He watched her go at it, working at a furious pace given the immense danger.  
"I should've made you top techie," Jake said to try and relieve the tension.  
"Nah-ah," Kim replied as her head remained in the inner workings of the hardsuit, "I learned this in a fanfic once."  
"A what?"  
"Never mind," she said as she stopped tinkering with the device, "I think I just tripped an ignition sequence or something."  
"What? Talk to me!"  
"Just give me the ball!"  
He did as he was told, and the golden sphere floated towards Kim, who had a hand on it and deflected it into the hardsuit.  
"You could've been a keeper."  
"Shut up! I'm probably missing some great soccer, because of you!"  
Kim leapt away from the machine, whose ignition and startup sequence did some to divert the attention of nearby spectators away from the pitch. The jets fired and the hardsuit, minus SkyKnight, lifted straight up into the air, taking the explosives-laced match ball with it, away from the innocent crowds on the ground at Yokohama.  
"We are wrecking a lot of hardware tonight," Kim said as the SkyKnight hardsuit flew into the air, unpiloted.  
Jake kept his eye on the machine as it blasted upwards, "Eh. It's a living."  
"Man, that's a pretty thing to see," she commented, watching the suit's propulsion make an eye-catching presentation that contrasted with the night, "I don't think I'll ever see anything more beautiful than that."  
---  
"They've scored! They've scored! A brilliant and unbelievable strike by the breakaway forward, it's now two-one! One of the finest goal we've seen in this tournament has been scored in the World Cup final!"  
---  
The glow of the ten-megaton blast, set off by the match ball and magnified by the ammunition of the SkyKnight hardsuit, faded into the night, a sight unseen by most of Yokohama and perhaps most of Japan, as its collective eyes were focused on the final match.  
The bits and pieces of debris that fell back down to the stadium were far too small to be dangerous, and were also largely ignored by the jubilant crowds in the stands. It was Kim and Jake that were frustrated, having kept their eye on the hardsuit the whole time.  
"Jake," Kim said, nudging her superior officer, "We probably missed the most beautiful goal in all of human history."  
"Don't say it again," Jake replied, still keeping his eyes pointed upwards, "I really don't want to look down to see what I missed."  
She took out her scanner and waved it around, "That should be it. I'm not reading any further incidence of compound-114."  
"He played his biggest hand and lost, he won't take another crack at it tonight."  
Jake sighed and took two steps away from Kim. For the umpteenth time the mad bomber had eluded Jake and an entire department.  
"Are you sure?" Kim asked.  
"That's his M.O. We'll get him next time," he mumbled, "Right now, I have other things to deal with."  
---  
He straightened his hair and his uniform, all ruffled up after much tension behind the scenes during the second half. After navigating his way through a row of seats, Jake sat down right next to Lisa, saying, "What happened to you?"  
A more grounded and more humble Lisa looked at him while she clutched her jaw, "Apparently Kentaro brought his girlfriend."  
He grinned and raised his eyebrows, "Well, what were the odds of that?"  
"Very masculine woman, though you couldn't tell from her appearance," she explained, moving her hand down to her bruised shoulder. She shook her head in frustration, adding, "Boy, can that girl kick."  
"I suppose you didn't see it coming."  
"Well, she sure didn't seem the jealous type until he mumbled something about my being a real woman...I dunno..."  
Jake leaned in closer to have an amused look at the bruises on Lisa's face. A hand hovered over a tender area near her mouth, until Lisa broke away.  
"You know, I'm still pissed at you!"  
The officer chuckled some, saying, "For the mission, or for the fire?"  
Lisa tilted her head, "Well, now you've reminded me of the other thing, thank-you-very-much."  
"I had to take the mission, Lisa."  
"You lead the entire freakin' junior department of the entire freakin' Federal Reality Commission, Jake Tyler," she insisted, "You did not have to take the mission."  
"Lisa--"  
"You could've just took some time off from work and hopped on a Clipper up to SpaceCol Three, where we could've had dinner and then some wild and ridiculous sex in my apartment to cap our anniversary."  
"Yeah," Jake nodded, "But then I wouldn't see your face light up like it's going to light up now."  
Lisa turned her head as her boyfriend pulled an object from his uniform, a plush doll so new that it still had the tag attached.  
She gasped, "Space-critter Bob! My favorite cartoon character in the whole wide galaxy!"  
"Actually," Jake said, "I got it at the souvenir stand here in the stadium."  
"But how--?"  
"They call it a Spherik," he explained while showing the doll to her, "One of the mascots for the World Cup. Talk about coincidences."  
Lisa gently ran her hand across the souvenir, giggling like and regressing into a little girl, "You bought this? For me?"  
He nodded his head, smiling, "There's only one reason we started dating five years ago today, and that's because I said I loved you on your birthday, so..."  
Lisa watched him stop in mid-sentence as he looked past her to spot a figure behind her. There he sat, one section away, the bomber that caused all of his problems tonight, now looking back at him and beginning to make a sudden break for the exit.  
"That's him," Jake said frantically, "That's him!"  
The villain raced up the steps, using his last chance to make an escape after a bit of bad luck caused him to be spotted. Jake broke from his chair, flinging the plush doll up in the sky and giving chase. The souvenir flew a number of seats above Lisa's head, until it finally landed on the lap of a lucky fan, a small girl whose face turned to joy upon being able to hold the Spherik as her own.  
Lisa, however, was not so gracious. "Jake Tyler!" she cried, "I'm gonna kill you!"  
---  
"Chris, I hope you've figured out the security net right about now," Jake said into the intercom, running full blast after the bomber.  
Chris spoke back confidently, "Two steps ahead of you, boss!" Back in mobile command, the officer tapped away at the keyboard, gazing intently at the monitors tapped into the security cameras throughout the stadium. The bomber dove in and out of a number of cameras, trying to escape Jake and a growing cadre of security officials. Their final obstacle was the front gate, slowly closing itself thanks to a few commands transmitted from the mobile center.  
Chris gazed at the security feed of the front gate, as officers quickly surrounded the cornered Coyle-double to arrest him. The Jumper's eyes lit up as he let go of the button that he had been holding down.  
"I did it!" he said, thinking he mastered control of the security system. He turned to his assistant technicians, "We did it!"  
The Commission officers jumped up and down in unison with Chris, jubilant that the deed had been done. They could finally relieve themselves of the tension that had filled the mobile command center.  
"Should we tell them?" ReRob asked his partner.  
MegaZone shook his head while putting in the final commands to open up the gate again. "They don't need to know," he replied.  
---  
"That's it! It's over! It's all over! Game over, final score two-one! A frantic fight to the finish but the victors hold on to their lead in the final minutes! A fairy tale ending that no one, and I mean no one, could have written!"  
---  
Jake collapsed onto a bench just outside the ticket windows, after seeing his adversary taken away in restraints. He had heard the final whistle and the last great cheer originating from inside the stadium. His prediction playing completely to form, Jake had missed the entire final. Jake leaned back, exhausted and worn out from all the action he had on his own.  
"Where did you go?" asked a voice, "I thought you wanted to see your dumb old game."  
He turned his head and, sure enough, there was Lisa. His mouth turned up at the corners as best he could, with what little energy he had left. Separated from the tens of thousands of people, he was delighted to see the one face he desired the most.  
"THAT'S for losing the doll," Lisa said, after punching him in the gut. Jake curled into a ball in reaction to the pain. He knew not what to make of it all, until she lifted his chin.  
"And this," she said before kissing him, "Is for saving the world again."  
Their lips locked and they held each other, not coming up for air for quite a long time.  
Jake finally broke away, saying to her, "You know, I will never understand you."  
Lisa shrugged, "I'm just one of life's great mysteries."  
"Yeah, I'll bet."  
"Oh, did you catch the score? They won, the--"  
He interrupted her, "DON'T. Don't spoil it for me. I guess I'll just watch it all on tape delay."  
"Aw, you should've seen it!" she insisted, "That goal by...what's his name? And all of his teammates! They started waving the flag for--"  
"I said don't spoil it! I don't wanna know who won!"  
"Come on, I just want to make you miserable! The opposing coach was furious, and that guy - I can't remember his name! But the score, I picked the team to win!"  
---  
"And so, a fitting end to a whole month of soccer at the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan. Thirty-two nations went in, two made it to the final, but there is only room for one team of champions. They have earned their title tonight with brilliant play and stunning strategy from top to bottom, and the fireworks at the stadium have barely reflected their legendary performance! No doubt that all of you should expect to see them next time out in 2006, when the World Cup comes around again. Join us then in four years, won't you? More stories to be written, more legends to be made, more characters to have their day. Until then, from all of us who have been bringing you the World Cup from start to finish, this is our final farewell from Asia, in historic International Stadium Yokohama. Final score at the final match, two-one. So long, everybody, and good night!"  
  
END. 


End file.
